She Asked Me to Stay
? Roman ?
She asks me to stay until Nora comes, so I remain in the chair beside her.
The fire burns low before us. Her hands rest in her lap, one folded over the wrist Jace touched, and her breathing steadies by degrees.
Most men would miss the change. I don’t.
I count it the way I count exits, weapons, wounds, and distance. I hate that I know how to measure a person’s fear before I know how to make it ease.
Ivy doesn’t look small in the chair. Tired, yes. Shaken, yes. But not small.
That’s what Jace can’t understand. He mistook quiet for emptiness and lowered eyes for surrender. Now he’s beginning to realize he was wrong, and men like him rarely handle being wrong without trying to make the truth pay for it.
After a few minutes, Ivy looks toward the open door.
“You have things to do.”
It isn’t dismissal. Still, I hear the mercy in it.
“I do,” I say. “Nora is coming to check your wrist.”
Her gaze drops to it. “I don’t need a healer every time someone behaves badly.”
“Near an active mark, I ask.”
That earns me a look. I keep my voice even. “She’ll ask what you need. You can tell her no.”
The corner of Ivy’s mouth lifts faintly. “That sounds like you’ve been listening.”
“I’m trying.”
Her expression softens, but only for a moment. Then she looks back toward the fire.
“I’m all right,” she says.
“No, you aren’t.”
Her eyes lift. I don’t soften the answer. “You’re angry. You’re shaken. You’re remembering his hand and hating that you froze before you could move. You’re also still here. You answered him. You chose what happens next. You didn’t let him turn your fear into his authority.”
The mark under my cuff warms once.
Ivy swallows. “You make it sound stronger than it felt.”
“Most strength doesn’t feel like strength while you’re spending it.”
Something in her face eases. Her fingers loosen over her wrist, though she doesn’t move her hand away.
I should leave. Instead, I look at the place Jace touched and hate every second I leave it alone.
“Roman.”
My name in her mouth is becoming a problem. Not because of the vow, but because it sounds like trust.
“I’ll send Nora,” I say.
For a moment, I think she’ll ask me to stay longer. For a worse moment, I want her to.
Instead, Ivy nods. “Go do what you need to do.”
I rise, then pause beside the chair without reaching for her. “You can send for me.”
“I know.”
This time, the words don’t sound like impatience. They sound like she believes me. That should be enough. It isn’t.
Still, I leave before wanting more becomes another thing she has to manage for me.
Nora reaches the side room before I reach the main corridor. Her medicine pouch hangs from one hand, and the look on her face suggests someone has made a poor decision and she’s prepared to explain why with force.
“Did she bleed?” she asks.
“No.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
“Lying?”
“Not that I could tell.”
“Good. I’ll decide how much of that I believe.” Her gaze sharpens. “Jace touched her?”
“Her wrist. Near the mark.”
Nora’s expression closes.
“She froze,” I add.
For a second, she closes her eyes as if she’s locking anger behind her ribs. When she opens them, they’re healer-cold.
“I’ll check her.”
“I know.”
“Roman.”
I stop.
“She asked you to stay?”
“Yes.”
“And you left anyway?”
“She told me to go.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
I meet her eyes. Nora’s mouth tightens. “Don’t turn restraint into withdrawal because Jace found a bruise to press.”
The corridor seems to narrow around us. I don’t answer.
Of course she doesn’t need one. My jaw tightens. “Careful.”
“I’m careful. You just don’t like when the blade points at you.”
“Nora.”
“She told you your age isn’t what frightens her, didn’t she?”
“She did.”
“And you believed her?”
“Yes.”
“Then believe her enough not to punish her with distance.”
The words strike cleaner than Jace’s did.
I want to say I’m not punishing Ivy. I don’t, because intention has never been enough to keep harm from happening. I hate that she’s right.
“I won’t crowd her,” I say.
“Good.”
“I won’t disappear either.”
“Better.” Nora nods toward the side room. “I’ll see to her. You go turn murderous intent into something useful.”
“I have a meeting with Dane.”
“Excellent. He complains with structure.”
She leaves before I can answer.
I take the warning to the lower map room, where Dane has three copied dispatches spread across the eastern table and no patience for my private failures. Dane is already inside. Of course he is.
He stands over the eastern table with three reports spread open and a charcoal pencil behind one ear. He looks up once when I enter.
“The prince looked at her like a weapon he misplaced.”
“No.”
Dane’s brows lift.
“He doesn’t know what she is,” I say. “He only knows she isn’t where he left her.”
That’s the heart of it.
Jace left Ivy beneath the silver arch in white, shaking and publicly stripped of value. He expected to find her here as an aftermath. A problem. A wounded girl grateful for shelter.
Instead, he found a Luna people answer. He found Holt taking her wording seriously, Nora guarding her like she matters, and northern servants speaking her title without being ordered. He found Ivy telling him no where she’d once have apologized for taking up space.
Jace doesn’t understand what changed, so he’ll blame me. Men like him prefer that. If Ivy has changed because of me, then she can be corrected by removing me.
“What did he say?” Dane asks.
“That I make obedience feel like safety.”
Dane’s expression goes flat. “He used your age.”
“Yes.”
“Your scar.”
“Yes.”
“Your reputation.”
“Efficiently.”
Dane swears under his breath. I cross to the table and look down at the maps because maps don’t ask what words did to a man. They only show where danger enters if no one watches the road.
Twelve years stand between Ivy and me. Twelve years, a war, a broken vow, and enough blood on my hands to make caution more than courtesy.
She told me my age didn’t frighten her. I believed her.
That didn’t make me less afraid of myself.
“What are they asking?” I say.
Dane lets the subject change because he’s a good beta and a better friend than either of us will name aloud.
“The observers are probing. One questioned a kitchen worker about Ivy’s supply work. Another asked a guard how long the North has called her Luna. Their clerk wanted Nora’s reason for attending her after dinner.”
“Who answered?”
“The kitchen worker said, ‘Long enough to keep men alive.’ The guard said, ‘Since she earned it.’ Nora’s apprentice said nothing because he fears her more than royal ink.”
“That boy may live.”
“My thought as well.”
“Any questions about the mark?”
“One observer asked whether it had faded.”
My hand stills on the map.
Dane’s voice cools. “Holt told him the state of the Luna’s body isn’t a public record.” That surprises me only slightly.
“Holt is improving,” I say.
“Shame is a strong teacher when it doesn’t rot a man first.”
“We still don’t know whether he was careless or useful to someone else.”
“No.” Dane taps the eastern route. “But I’m beginning to think whoever used his mark counted on his pride making him look guiltier than he was.”
That fits too well.
“Harrow Bell?” I ask.
“Watched. Nervous. Not fleeing.”
“Connected to court?”
“Not openly.”
“Everyone is connected to something.”
Dane taps the route board again. “The western-pass relief shipment cleared the second toll point, but the toll clerk sent notice ahead.”
“To whom?”
“Brooks trade office.”
Of course. The past has many roads, and too many of them lead back to that house.
“Can they stop it?”
“No. Ivy’s wording held.”
Dane says it plainly now, without surprise.
That should please me. Instead, I think of Jace’s hand around her wrist.
Dane watches my face. “You’re going to break something.”
“No.”
“You look like you’re deciding whether furniture counts.”
“I’m deciding whether princes do.”
“Politically complicated.”
“Most satisfying things are.”
His mouth twitches, then the reports pull us back.
“Jace won’t stop,” Dane says.
“No.”
“He won’t call it wanting her. Not yet.”
“No,” I say. “Wanting would require seeing her.”
Dane goes quiet.
“He wants the altar rewritten. If Ivy stays small, he was right. If she becomes powerful here, he has to face what he discarded.”
“And once he understands what she is?”
“Pride becomes policy.”
The room settles around the truth.
Jace’s crime wasn’t rejecting power he understood. It was believing weakness made Ivy disposable. A man who rejects a threat is cautious. A man who rejects someone because he thinks she’s nothing tells you what he’ll do whenever he believes no one important is watching.
Dane folds his arms. “What do you want done?”
“Questions about Ivy’s health, mark, rank, or abilities come through you, Nora, or me. Keep them out of the infirmary and supply rooms. Find out who told Brooks we were moving.”
“Already moving.”
“And Jace?”
“Watched?”
“Enough that he notices none of it.”
Dane’s smile is thin. “Finally, a pleasant task.”
“Don’t provoke him.”
“You wound me.”
“I know your hobbies.”
He gathers the reports and heads for the door.
The map room falls quiet after he leaves, but not peaceful. Court guests occupy the eastern wing. Northern guards watch the halls. Ivy is somewhere above with Nora, likely being scolded into drinking something bitter. Jace doesn’t want Ivy back. Not yet.
He wants proof that throwing her away didn’t make him a fool.
Men like Jace become dangerous when pride starts looking for evidence.